¹ Until then a patristic writing translated into the vernacular was extremely rare.

² Cf. Martin Bucer in the Preface to his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels: ‘One has to deplore the arrogance of those who disdain to read the writings of not only the holy Fathers but also of modern commentators which offer to explain the Word of God’; Enarrationesperpetuac (i $30), fol. A 7b; see also Bucer’s marginal comment in the same commentary (fol. 100b): They tempt the Lord who aspire to knowledge of scripture without a great deal of study.’ A literalist application of the “Scripture alone’ principle gave rise to this anti-academic attitude. It was found among some of those committed to alternative Reformation, e.g. Thomas Miintzer and Andrew Carlstadt. The former referred to the Wittenberg theologians as ‘mischievous Scripture thieves’ (verschmitzte Schriftstehler) and ‘spiteful biblical scholars’ (gehassige Schriftgelehrten) who are the modern Pharisees. See his Hochverursachte Schutzrede in Thomas Miintzer. Schriften und Briefe, ed. Wehr, G. (Gutersloh, 1978), pp. 108–9Google Scholar; cf. n. 46 below.

³ The most influential call to have the Bible translated into modern languages had been that of Erasmus in 1516, in the Paraclesis of his In Novum Testamentum Praefationes: i disagree absolutely with those who are reluctant to have Holy Scripture, translated into the vernacular, read by the laity, as if Christ taught such complex doctrines that they could only be understood by a very few theologians, or as if the strength of the Christian religion consisted in people’s ignorance of it… Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as openly as possible. … For it is not fitting that… doctrines alone should be reserved for those very few whom the crowd call theologians or monks… is he a theologian, let alone a Christian, who has not read the literature of Christ? Who loves me, Christ says, keeps my Word … Only a few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and, I shall boldly add, all can be theologians.’ See Erasmus von Rotterdam. Ausgewdhlte Schrif ten … Lateinisch und Deutsch, 3, ed. Winkler, G. (Darmstadt, 1967), pp. 15–23Google Scholar.

⁴ Traditionally, the Church did not on principle ban the translation of the Bible, but she rarely encouraged such ventures for fear of facilitating heretical notions. But there were traditionalist individuals who openly opposed translations, and Calvin summarizes the debate with them in his Latin preface to Olivetan’s French Bible in 1535: ‘But the ungodly voices of some are head, shouting that it is a shameful thing to publish these divine mysteries among the simple common people “How then”, they ask, “can these poor illiterates comprehend such things, untutored as they are in all liberal arts?”… Why don’t these people at least imitate the example of the Fathers to whom they pretend to be so deferential? Jerome did not disdain mere women as partners in his studies…. Why is it that Chrysostom contends that the reading of Holy Scripture is more necessary for common people than for monks, [especially since the former] are tossed about by waves of care and business?’ See CR, Calvini opera, 9, cols 787–8. English: Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1536 edition, ed. Battles, appendix IV, pp. 37311”.; cf. Bohatec, , Budeund Calvin, pp. 129–30Google Scholar.

⁵ That is, Scripture. Lat sacrarium, meaning also sanctuary or shrine. Oracula dei is the phrase normally associated with Calvin, Institutes, 4.9.14, and before him Bucer, Enarrationes, fol. A 5b, 7b. The use of sacrarium illustrates that, for Calvin, Scripture as the Word of God is in a sense theophanic. But he was also to qualify this by saying that Scripture is no more than the living image of God; similitude, not identity. See also Stauffer, Dieu, la creation et la providence, p. 54. quum sit commune filiis Dei + CR, but deleted in MS Geneva.fr. 145, fol. 160r.

⁶ By this time a number of translations of the New Testament or the whole Bible by Catholic authors were available, e.g. in French by Lefevre d’Etaples (1530), in German by Emser (1527), Dietenberger (1534), and Eck (1537), in Italian by Brucioli (1534) and Zacharia and Marmochino (1538). But that attitudes in the Old Church were slow to change is suggested by the fact that in his preaching, Calvin continued to denounce roundly the closed-shop treatment of scripture. See Stauffer, pp. 57–9.

⁷ Lat. thesaurus, meaning also treasury or storehouse.

⁸ Mal. 4.2.

⁹ That is, pre-1520.

¹⁰ In German, there was Luther’s Bible (1522-34), and the Zurich Bible (1529), in English, Tyndale’s version (1525–31) and Coverdale’s (1535), in French, Olivétan’s Bible (1534). Modern translations were also available in Dutch, Low German, Danish, Swedish, Czech, and Hungarian before 1540.

¹¹ Cf. Eph.i. 14, 18. Heb.9.15.

¹² Cf. n. 5.

¹³ Cf. John 6.54ff.

¹⁴ Lat scopus—a nautical and astronomical term, which can refer either to the instrument by which a ‘sighting’ like a star is found, or the star itself. It was Erasmus, following his familiarity with the Greek Fathers, who had reintroduced this use of the word in his Ratio seu compendium utrae theologiae (1518), ed. Winkler, pp. 200–1: ‘We must not corrupt the heavenly philosophy of Christ May that goal remain intact May that north star never be darkened for us, may that sure sign never be missing by which we, tossed about in the waves of error, will find the right course again.’ Cf. Boyle, Marjoric O’Rourke, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (Toronto, 1977), pp. 4ffGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ Cf. I Cor. 2. 10–14. The expression ‘heavenly wisdom’ is characteristic of Calvin, and very much echoes Erasmian humanist usage; cf. Boisset, J., Sagesse et saintété dans la pensee de Calvin. Essai sur l’humanisme du réformateur francais (Paris, 1959)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ This section is an allusion to Calvin’s doctrine of the ‘internal testimony of the Holy Spirit’.

¹⁷ Erasmus, , Prefationes: Methodus, ed. Winkler, , pp. 68–70Google Scholar: ‘Someone may ask: “What? Do you regard the Holy Scripture as so straightforward that it could be understood without com mentaries?” … the work of the Ancients ought to relieve us of some of the labour.’ Also Prae- fationes: Apologia, ed. Winkler, pp. 96–7, where Erasmus writes that ‘The Holy Spirit is never absent, but he reveals his power in such a way that he leaves us with a share of the work [of interpretation].’ Behind this way of thinking is the Pauline notion of ‘prophesying’ and the gift of interpretation. Cf. n. 2.

¹⁸ I Cor. 3.21, 23.

¹⁹ At this time, only about 5 per cent of the population of Europe was effectively literate.

²⁰ Cf. Calvin in his preface to Olivétan’s Bible, ed. Battles, p. 374: ‘I desire only this, that faithful people be permitted to hear their God speaking and to learn knowledge from [him]. … When therefore we see that there are people from all classes who are making progress in God’s school, we acknowledge His truth which promised a pouring forth of His Spirit on all flesh.’

²¹ d. 407, successively bishop of Antioch and Constantinople.

²² Calvin is alluding to the fact that the bulk of the exegetical material in known Chrysostom opera was presented in the form of homilies.

²³ The points made by Calvin here echo those made by Erasmus in the Preface to his Chryso stom edition of 1530, a preface which was republished in the Paris edition of 1536 used by Calvin, e.g., ‘Among the various gifts of the Spirit [in Chrysostom], teaching ability is pre eminent … for who teaches more clearly?… for all his great erudition and eloquence, there is in almost everything he wrote an incredible concern to be helpful; he adapted to the ears of the people, with the result that he brought the essence of a sermon down to the level of their comprehension, as if he were a schoolteacher speaking child-talk with an infant pupil’. Chrysostomi omnia opera, fols 9b E— 10b G; Stauffer, cf., Dieu, la creation et la providence, pp. 54–6Google Scholar, and Bouwsma, John Calvin, pp. 124ff.

²⁴ Cf. Eph.4. 11f.

²⁵ II Cor. 12.2-4.

²⁶ Cf. Bucer, Enarrationes, fol. 5a: ‘My chief aim with this commentary has been to be of assist ance to the very uneducated brethren, of whom you will find many… and to whom Christ our Lord is beginning to reveal himself again.’

²⁷ Erasmus, Cf., Praefationes: Methodus, ed. Winkler, , pp. 42–3Google Scholar: ‘Our first concern should be with the thorough learning of the three languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew… to achieve a working knowledge, sufficient for exercising judgement’Bucer, Enarrationes, fol. 3b, also regrets that ‘there are a great number of those entrusted with the office of teaching in the Church who … bar many people from the Evangelists… due to linguistic incompetence.’ See also Kriiger, Bucer und Erasmus, pp. 95–6.

²⁸ Bucer had stated that early Church exegetes had indulged far too much in allegorical and mystical interpretations ‘with the one exception of Chrysostom’: Enarrationes, fol. 4a.

²⁹ Cf Parker, T. H. L., The Oracles of God. An Introduction to the Preaching of John Calvin (London, 1947). pp. 13–21Google Scholar.

³⁰ A view still maintained in modern times, e.g. ‘No Church Father expounded the sacred text so thoroughly and at the same time in such a practical manner [as Chrysostom]’: Altaner, B. and Stuiber, A, Patrologie. Leben, Schriften und Lehre der Kirchenväter. 8th edn (Freiburg, 1978), p. 324Google Scholar. See also Young, Frances, From Nicaea to Chalcedon. A guide to the Literature and its Back ground (London, 1983), pp. 154–9Google Scholar, and Chase, F. H., Chrysostom, A Study in the History of Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge, 1887Google Scholar).

³¹ d. 254, lay head of the famous Catechetical School in Alexandria.

³² d. 373, Bishop of Alexandria.

³³ d. 379, Bishop of Caesarea.

³⁴ d. c.390. Bishop of Nazianzus.

³⁵ d. 444, Bishop of Alexandria.

³⁶ d. c. 1108, more of a medieval Byzantine writer than a Church Father, Archbishop of Ochryda (Bulgarian, Yugoslavia), his commentary on the Gospels was edited by the Basle Reformer, Oecolampad, in 1524.

³⁷ d. c.220, lay theologian in Carthage.

³⁸ d. 258, Bishop of Carthage.

³⁹ d. 367, Bishop of Poitiers.

⁴⁰ This unusual term in this context Calvin derives from Erasmus’s Hilary edition—Lucubrationes—of 1523, in which the commentary on Matthew is entitled In Evangelium Matthaei canones, seu commentarius. The term’s implausibility is discussed by Migne in his Aimonitio preceding his edition of the commentary in PL 9, cols 912, XI–914, XIV. Cf. Hilairt de Poitiers, Sur Matthieu (ed. J. Doignon, SC, 254 (1978).

⁴¹ d. 420, lay biblical scholar and translator, chief mediator of Origenist/Alexandrian allegorical exegesis to the Latin West.

⁴² A slip by Calvin here, since Jerome commented not only Galatians and Ephesians, but also Philemon and Titus.

⁴³ d. 397, Bishop of Milan. It is more likely that Calvin had the Ambrosiaster (pseudo-Ambrose) in mind, rather than Ambrose himself, although Erasmus’s edition in 1527 had distinguished between the two.

⁴⁴ d. 430, Bishop of Hippo.

⁴⁵ In other words, Chrysostom is a representative of the anti-allegorical Antiochene exegetical tradition. Cf. Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Doctrines, 4th edn (London, 1968), pp. 75ffGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Cf.n.27.

⁴⁷ Cf. I Cor. 3.21–3. Calvin, writes in his Epistle to the King of France, at the beginning of the Institutes, ed. Battles and McNeill, LCC 20, 1, pp. 18–19Google Scholar [Calvinioperaselecta, ed. Barth, and Niesel, W (Munich, 1926—36), 3, pp. 17—18]Google Scholar: ‘We are so versed in the writings [of the Fathers] as to remember always that all things are ours, to serve us, not to lord it over us, and that we all belong to the one Christ, whom we must obey in all things without exception. He who does not observe this distinction will have nothing certain in religion.’ Luther, Cf., Operationesin Psalmos (is 1921), WA, 5, pp. 280–1Google Scholar:’Since Scripture and God’s Word must have a single and unchangeable meaning, [we must] avoid turning the sacred text into a “wax nose” … [we should] not accept something read in any of the famous Fathers as an oracle… some make a habit of this, shredding Scripture with diverse meanings, so that we almost have as many opinions as there are syllables.’

⁴⁸ Erasmus, Cf., Praefationes: Methodus, ed. Winkler, , pp. 68—70Google Scholar: ‘One must of course read [the Ancients] critically and with discrimination. They were human beings, some things they did not know, and in some things they let their minds wander. Occasionally they were fast asleep.’ And Bucer, Enarrationes, fols 7a—b: ‘We are all human beings, and until now God has revealed that due to considerable lapses great men are mortal, lest honour should be given to them instead of him… the blindness of those people is to be deplored who on reading some thing produced by a human being, treat it like oracles of God. It is the mode of the Holy Spirit that while one or the other prophesies, others make an assessment. We acknowledge this mode [at work] in some people, and they should acknowledge it in us.’

⁴⁹ Cf. I Cor. 6.3.

⁵⁰ Calvin can do no other than to distance himself from Chrysostom’s views on grace, works, merit, election, justification, etc. Standing firmly within the Reformation version of the radical Pauline and Augustinian revival, he could have little sympathy widi a theology which, in fact, represents the entire Greek patristic tradition. The latter proceeded on the basis of the semi-Pelagian notion of a mutual approximation between God and humanity, whereas the former posited a chasm and polarity between God and humanity, which can only be bridged by divine initiative and operation. In the 1559 Institutes, 2. 2. 4, Calvin writes: ‘The Greeks above the rest—and Chrysostom especially among them—extol the ability of the human will.’ And Bucer, in his Romans Commentary of 1536, ed. Wright, D. F., Common Places of Martin Bucer (Abingdon, 1972), p. 154Google Scholar: ‘Chrysostom is most assiduous in championing man’s will and capability for godly living.’ See also Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 332. On the Augustinian revival see Oberman, H. A., Masters of the Reformation: the Emergence of a New Intellectual Climate in Europe (Cambridge, 1981), ch. 6; cf. McGrath, A. E., Iustitia Dei: a History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵¹ Kg., Gen. 3;Jer. 31.18-20;Ezech. 36.26-7; Joh. 8. 34–8; Rom. 4.2ff., 8, 9, etc.

⁵² E.g., as in Chrysostom’s De proditione Iuiae homilia, 1, 3: PC 49, col. 377. Also his homilies on Genesis 19.1; 53.2; 25.7: PG 53, col. 158; 54. col. 468; 53, col. 228.

⁵³ wrote, Calvin ex fide Iesu Christi. The unusual form of this phrase, with Jesus Christ in a genitivus objectivus, appears only once in the Greek and Latin New Testaments, in Gal. 3.22.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Bucer, Cf., Romans Commentary, ed. Wright, p. 152Google Scholar: “Scripture ascribes all the credit for salvation to the grace of God and universally condemns every part of our nature as utterly ungodly.’

⁵⁵ Aristode, Cf., Nichomachean Ethics III, 5, 2–3Google Scholar. Cicero, , On the Nature of the Gods HI, 36, 87–8Google Scholar. Seneca, Epistle 00 to Lucilius. See also Calvin, Institutes 2.2.2.

⁵⁶ Calvin’s analysis of the situation recalls that of Bucer in an excursus on free will in his Romans Commentary (1536), ed. Wright, pp. 153–4. But there is an important difference of perception. Whereas Bucer explains the views of the Fathers, including Chrysostom, as a response to divergent interpretations of Scripture within the Church, Calvin understands the position of someone like Chrysostom as a response to pagan critiques of Christianity. There does not, however, seem to be much evidence in mainstream pagan anti-Christian polemics, as in Celsus or Porphyry, or in pagan apologetics as found in Salousrios or Libanius (under whom Chrysostom reputedly studied) that free will was an issue. Labriolle, Cf. P. de, La Reaction paienne: Etude sur la polemique antichretienne iu ler au Vie stick (Paris, 1934)Google Scholar. It is more likely that Chrysostom had Christian sects or heresies in mind which denied free will or its relevance, e.g. Marcionite Gnostics, Montanists, Manichaeans, etc. Anyway, the Neoplatonist philosopher Plorinus had long since refuted Stoic philosophical deterministic denial of free will.

⁵⁷ Calvin, Cf. in his Des Scandales (1550)Google Scholar, Fatio, ed. O., Textes Littéraires Français (Geneva, 1984), pp. 76–7Google Scholar: ‘Would to God that the ancient teachers had not been so taken aback by the opposition of [the philosophers], since by taking the trouble to appease them, they have left us with a lifeless and counterfeit theology. To avoid annoying them, [Chrysostom etal] have confused heaven and earth… they look for a way more in conformity with human opinion by selling out to free will, and allowing some natural virtue in men.’ In a sense, then, Calvin’s notion that Chrysostom embodies an accommodation to secular philosophy in the matter of free will adumbrated the ‘Hellenization of Christianity’ theory.

⁵⁸ A term of abuse to designate reputedly anti-Christian philosophers, usually employed by Calvin to describe the Scholastics. “ Aristode, Cf., Nichomachean Ethics III, 5, 2–3Google Scholar. Cicero, , On the Nature of the Gods HI, 36, 87–8Google Scholar. Seneca, Epistle 00 to Lucilius. See also Calvin, Institutes 2.2.2.

⁵⁹ The reference here is to pseudo-Epicureans and fatalistic Stoics. The latter were forced into ethical indifference by a pessimistic determinisc view of human nature. Bucer, Cf., Romans Commentary, ed. Wright, p. 153Google Scholar: ‘The one thing the Fathers sought to guard against was a person’s shifting the blame for his own ungodliness on to God’s shoulders.’ See also Osborn, E., Ethical Patterns in Early Christian Thought (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 134–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who includes Manichaean and Marcionite dualists as Chrysostom’s target.

⁶⁰ A fair summary of Chrysostom’s position. Kenny, Cf. Anthony, ‘Was St. John Chrysostom a Semi-Pelagian?’ Irish Theological Quarterly (1960), pp. 16—29.Google Scholar As a Reformation theologian, Calvin would find Chrysostom reminiscent of the doctrine of late medieval Nominalist theologians, against which the Reformers reacted so strongly, namely, ‘God does not refuse grace to those who do what lies within them.’ Oberman, Cf. H. A., The Dawn of the Reformation (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 84–103Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Latin quid habuerint sacri conventus, taking sacri not as a nominative plural adjective, but as a partitive genitive noun.

⁶² Typical Christian humanist idealization of the Early Church, corresponding to the Renaissance view of Antiquity. For some modern studies on Calvin’s relationship to humanism and tradition in general, see White, R., ‘Fifteen Years of Calvin Studies in French (1965–1980)’, Journal of Religious History, 12 (1982), pp. 140–61Google Scholar.